Lately, I’ve been fielding many more questions about Ethos Design Collective, so I thought I would write this blog post as a reference guide, to answer all of the questions in one spot.

Who Owns And Funds Ethos Design Collective?

Ethos Design Collective was founded and is administered daily by luxury interior designer, Kelly Starks Schellert, principal of Ceanii Artful Interiors in St. Louis, MO.

Ethos Design Collective is majority owned by Kelly Starks Schellert and her husband, Ron Schellert. and minority owned by Julia Molloy and myself, Leslie Carothers.

Kelly and Ron self funded Ethos Design Collective in its early days and currently, in addition to their ongoing investment, our members help fund the daily operations along with our sponsoring brand partners.

How I Got Involved

When Ethos Design Collective first started, Kelly contacted Julia Molloy and asked Julia if she would come on board as her first advisory partner/investor. Julia agreed. Julia then advised Kelly to invite me on as her 3rd founding advisory board partner and investor. I agreed.

What Makes Ethos Design Collective Unique As A Search Engine Site Compared To Other Search Engine Sites?

Per our terms and conditions, Ethos Design Collective will never sell products against an interior designer’s uploaded portfolio images. In addition, our terms and conditions state that our luxury interior designer members retain ownership of all of their uploaded photos. They are free to take them down at any time, with no negative consequences.

Member Benefits, In Addition To Becoming A Part of the Ethos Search Engine Directory
If you are accepted as a member, 3 key member benefits are shown below.

1/In addition to being part of our search engine site, we work to develop special pricing and private label programs with our sponsors for our members - a very valuable benefit of membership.

We offer other national visibility opportunities for our members as well, such as speaking opportunities and the ability to be part of exciting programs like the Instagram takeover we did of HPMKT’s Instagram feed in Spring of 2022, which you will see below.

Another very exciting opportunity for our founding members will be unveiled in January of 2023.

2/We offer a supplemental insurance program that is a boon to some of our members, as it covers their family and employees at a cost that is similar to what a Fortune 500 company would get.

3/ Being a part of the #EthosInnerCircle community - a private Facebook Group for our members - is a high level networking opportunity that has helped our members get to know one another and has led to friendships and information sharing that is priceless.

Our mission with Ethos Design Collective is not simply to help our luxury interior designer members get found by those of you wanting to hire them, but to create opportunities for them to generate revenue for their businesses and to improve their business operations.

What Are The Membership Requirements And How Much Does It Cost?

Currently, membership in Ethos Design Collective is 44.99 a month, or, if paid annually, $450.00 a year, a 17% savings. Most of our members are on our annual plan.

We are very careful when vetting members for admission, as our brand promise to you , the consumers who might see this post at any time, is to help you find VETTED luxury interior designers to hire. As much as we can, we want to insure you have a quality experience with our members, should you hire one of them.

That being said, if you are a consumer reading this, we advise you to always check the background and references of our members carefully before hiring any of them, as we cannot guarantee their performance or that you will be happy with their services.

Search and find one of our members to hire here: https://ethosdesigncollective.com.

Apply to become a member here: https://ethosdesigncollective.com/member-registration. Please note there is a $35.00 non-refundable registration fee to apply.

Our Members Support Our Brand Sponsors

We accept sponsorship only from trade friendly brands who support our mission.

We have a sponsorship document to send to any brand interested in collaborating with our members, who represent enormous collective buying power and understand how to use it [ and do use it ] to support our sponsors, both financially and through their social channels.

Our members are committed to supporting our sponsors who support their livelihoods and give them the opportunities that matter to their continuing growth and success.

Three brand sponsors currently sponsoring Ethos Design Collective are Cosentino, Woodbridge Furniture and Charleston Forge.

Thank you, Cosentino, Charleston Forge and Woodbridge Furniture, for understanding the win-win value in sponsoring Ethos Design Collective .

If you are interested in joining Woodbridge Furniture , Cosentino and Charleston Forge as a financial sponsor of Ethos Design Collective, currently consisting of ~50 of the top professional luxury interior designers working in the USA, Canada and the US VIrgin Islands today, please contact Kelly through the contact form on ethosdesigncollective.com.

OUR EVENTS

Ethos Design Collective formally launched at Fall 2021 High Point Market with 5 events, hosted by 5 different showrooms - Global Views, Seasonal Living, Jaipur Living, Norwalk Furniture and Woodbridge Furniture. We were so appreciative of the hospitality shown to us by each of these showrooms.

Later, in Spring of 2022, we did a formal takeover of #HPMKT’s Instagram feed, where our participating members shared their favorite photos.

From this, HPMKT Authority created a permanent Instagram GUIDE, written by Ethos Design Collective founder, Kelly Schellert, which you can see below.

If you’d like to see the entire Guide, please click on the link at the bottom of this post.

We were so appreciative of High Point Market Authority’s marketing team for working with us to make this opportunity possible for our members.

Below are some of our members at the Norwalk Furniture showroom, for one of our five launch events at HPMKT in Fall of 2021.

The editors at Business of Home interviewed Kelly for this article that appeared in January of 2022, where EDC member Rachel Viloria Moriarty spoke about the benefits she’s receiving from being a member of Ethos Design Collective.

If you’re a consumer reading this who is seeking to hire a vetted, professional luxury interior designer, we invite you to use our search engine at ethosdesigncollective.com to view the portfolios of our members.

A few of our members, with examples of their work, are shown below.

Thank you to all of you who have been so supportive of our new search engine platform and of what we are working to accomplish for the future of luxury interior design - we appreciate each of you.

Leslie Carothers | @lesliemcarothers
Named One of Home Furnishing News Magazine’s Top 40 Most Inspiring Women In Home
CEO, Savour Partnership

Founding Advisory Partner
ethosdesigncollective.com | @ethosdesigncollective